Posts by Patrick_H

  • Call of Duty 7: Black Ops

    Watched my colleague play it here at work. Level design has its ups and downs...strange arbitrary use of slow motion, abuse of player blocking volumes, instantly killing the player when they veer off the path, terribly confusing objectives in the Battle of Khe Sanh. IGN ripped them a new one about that mission:

    http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/113/1133005p1.html

    Overall, not bad though...a lot of variety and an interesting story. Black Ops is worth it, as usual, for the whole package not just the SP campaign.

  • METRO 2033

    Loving this game so far!

    I think the graphics are fabulous...and I am not talking OMG what an amazing shader, lighting effect, DX11 shit either. That technical stuff means nothing if the ART direction isn't there. This game would make an amazing movie- some scenes are just wonderful, the story is original, and the concept overall is well worth seeing. The game also did a great job creating a survival horror vibe, through ammo conservation and oddball makeshift weapons. I played up through Chapter 6, and although the AI wasn't the best, it was far from the worst.

    I don't know what the hell is wrong with the nerdy dipshits writing reviews either- this game is proof positive that so much of the time, Metacritic is absolute bullshit. Maybe if I had the short attention span of gerbil, and the interests of a nerd, I might not enjoy the game as much, and instead I'd go play my millionth hour of CoD*.

    *I do play CoD btw, but its a joke compared to TF2!

  • Wolfenstein

    Quote from Jetsetlemming

    Huh, interesting. Soldiers use the same ammo as other classes but are stronger? In ET the Soldier's weapons that made him the fighter class were all unique specialized ammos. With the generic Thompson/MP40 everyone was equal (except in ammo max and player skill ), so a Soldier with a rocket launcher or light MG couldn't just collect enemy ammo drops, because they weren't using the same weapons. He had to rely on map ammo boxes or field ops.

    Yeah, in the earlier build of Wolf MP, Soldiers on Axis side had one kind of ammo, Resistance had another- so their was a certain logic behind not being able to use a dead enemies ammo. It looks like Endrant made it so that both sides use the MP40 now- so although there is a "realistic" logic behind getting ammo from dead enemies, it effectively unbalances the classes. :roll:

  • Wolfenstein

    Oh man, I hope I didn't see what I think I saw in that MP footage.

    We removed ammo drops from dead enemies and I see its back now. That was taken out to get Soldiers to rely on Engies for ammo, so they couldn't go out on one man killing sprees!

  • Wolfenstein

    Got the game for 360 here in NYC a couple of days ago. Raven actually squeezed a lot out of ole Doom3, and there are some crazy shit moments with the Havok engine. Nice work there Vivi!

    Don't get yer hopes up for name credit though Dark, it ain't in there. I would agree that the MP maps are mostly Threewave. No offense to Zeta, but Threewave LDs basically got shafted on the whole deal in that regard. Oh well, at least Activision remembered to put all 300 QA testers and their dogs names on the credits.

  • ZeniMax Media (Bethesda) Acquires id Software (PR)

    RE: Wolfenstein... according to Todd Hollenshead:

    "We're not going to change the kinds of games we make…. It allows us to accelerate the growth of our internal studios, so we can focus on making all of our internal games as opposed to working with external partners where there has been a step down in quality…"

    No offense to generalvivi, but Raven really did dick around with that IP for way too long. Pre-production started in 2004.

  • Free Radical closing down!?

    Up until Haze, they did make good games.

    I really can't comment on their management ability, but the Timesplitters series, and even Second Sight, were clever and unique games. Haze was their attempt to go more hardcore and photorealistic in style, and it was clearly a bad idea for them to attempt that with the same staff who were good at those more zany and stylized games.

    Still wondering how one can "lose the rights" to develop a game (in this case the rumored LucasArts Battlefront game). It seems to me if you sign a contract...well, you signed a contract.

  • Silent Hill Origins

    I have this game sitting at home right now. I'm waiting til I have the perfect time to play it, since the Silent Hill series is like an event for me. I have to admit though it seems to be one of those games where people love it or hate it. I'm of the former opinion...People who hate it say the combat is terrible. But its more about atmosphere and mood and if thats not enough for you in a game, then its not for you. Case in point, compare the IGN and Gamespot reviews.

    IGN: 8

    Gamespot: 6.5